Posted on Thursday, January 27 2011 @ 18:51 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Sources at motherboard makers reveal ASRock became the third largest motherboard brand in 2010, with shipments totaling eight million units. ASRock was launched in 2002 as a low-cost brand by Asustek, and over the years it has become quite popular in the mid-range and high-end market. Asustek is still the largest motherboard brand with 21.6 million units shipped, while Gigabyte shipped about 18 million own-brand motherboards in 2010. ASRock is now bigger than MSI and ECS, which both shipped around 7 million branded mainboards last year.
Asustek shipped about 21.6 million branded motherboards in 2010, still the largest in the market, despite the company was unable to achieve its goal of shipping 25 million units. However, Asustek's profits of NT$8 billion (US$275.34 million) from its motherboard business in 2010 still allowed the company to outshine its competitors.
Gigabyte shipped about 18 million branded motherboards in 2010, the second-largest in the market and achieved strong results from the China market; however, affected by Asustek competing over price, the company's profitability in 2010 was lower than expected.
ASRock currently has about 75-80% of its motherboard shipments mid-range and high-end models with price points at around US$50. Despite the company selling motherboards with a rather cheap price, its gross margin was still able to maintain at above 18-19%. ASRock shipped about two million motherboards in the fourth quarter of 2010 and is expected to see flat or slight growth of 5% sequentially for the first quarter of 2011, according to market watchers.
Source DigiTimes
